


Family Dinner

by Shayvaalski



Series: The Kids Are Alright [6]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dinner, I Don't Even Know, Kid Fic, M/M, Parentlock, Parents & Children, moran family values, seb moran: minder of highly sensitive people, the kids are alright, trigger warning for disordered eating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-13
Updated: 2012-06-13
Packaged: 2017-11-07 15:03:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/432456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shayvaalski/pseuds/Shayvaalski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just over a month after Siobhan joins the Moran family, Sebastian spends a deeply frustrating evening at the dinner table with her and Jim. Not that there is any other kind of mealtime, with two Moriartys at table.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family Dinner

**Author's Note:**

> As the tags suggest, there is some intimation of disordered eating in this fic.

Sebastian pauses with his fork halfway to his mouth, pasta hanging off the end, and stares across the table at Jim, who is doing nothing much at all. He doesn’t look angry, or even annoyed; there’s no tense shift of muscles in his throat to indicate that he will not be finishing his dinner tonight. He’s just watching, eyes blank and brown, face calm, shuttered like a door on the windward side in a gale.

The click of Seb’s fork being set down only emphasizes how quiet the room has grown, and Seb glances toward Jim’s plate, where tagliatelle with snow peas (the garden is finally paying off) and leek and cheese is cooling, untouched. A flash of annoyance, familiar and well-worn; he’s made dinner for Moriarty most nights for the last six years, and Seb can guess how this will go. Jim shifts in his chair, blinks slow and thoughtful, exhales, looks away. Seb knows he’s only half-there, mind flickering like an over-clocked hard drive, streaming along on a level Sebastian will never, ever comprehend in all the years Jim has left for him to live, and he wants to reach across the table, take the boss by his collar and fling him to the ground so that a volcanic temper erupts and there is blood on the kitchen tile and bruised knuckles and a high thin laugh--

But they are sat down to dinner and god _fucking_ dammit but Seb is going to do things right. He snaps his fingers, and two sets of dark eyes flick to his hand, then his face. 

(He loves them. Really he does. His good left hand to _God_ he does.)

“Gonna eat tonight, Jimmy?” The question suggests two possible answers; Seb’s tone, only one. Jim frowns, minutely, and his mouth is beginning to form what will doubtless be something cruel and cutting and starting with ‘no’ when Sebastian lays his palm softly against the table. He doesn’t have to point or nod or a say a word, and Jim’s gaze tracks to the right and Seb’s follow it. 

Siobhan is watching, her own food almost untouched. She is, Seb thinks, so terribly small. Her head tips to the side and he swallows; how much of the girl is Moriarty and how much some other blood is a thing Seb does not know. It makes him thunderstorm-nervous, streaks the house through with the tremor of lightening that has just struck, or is about to. Jim has not exploded for five weeks, since the day she came. The three of them are in flux, a shift and slide around each other, not quite touching--

“Do you not like it, pet?”

Sebastian blinks, but it’s Jim, sure as anything living, voice not gentle but mild. Siobhan swings her feet, childlike (which continues to surprise Seb; already he thinks of her as older but she’s not even eight) and says, “It’s fine, mum,” and goes silent. 

Jim hums, low and grating; it rings in Seb’s teeth, and he shakes his head, hard, kicks Jim under the table. One dinner, one meal where they all make it to dessert, please Jesus God just _one._

There’s a snarl from across the table as booted foot meets delicate shin, and Jim lurches forward as if he will destroy anything in his path in order to get his hands around Seb’s throat. But the motion is checked, abortive; Sebastian can see Jim drag himself back under control, hand clenched so that his fingernails bite into soft palms. Seb’s skin prickles as Moriarty’s eyes slam into him--another two hours and a locked door and he will be paying for this.

Jim sits. Siobhan makes a small considering _hm_ and relaxes in a way Sebastian will worry about later. The kitchen is bright and quiet; this time of year, the sun is still well up, even at dinnertime, even when dinner is late because it is hard, _really_ hard to cut up leeks and slice cheese without the good knives. Seb takes a long breath, then another, and taps his fingertips against his water glass, which is not glass or even ceramic but a heavy plastic that Seb spent an hour one morning failing to shatter. Moriarty has broken three already. 

They are both watching him, Jim amused and seething beneath the amusement, Siobhan still unreadable. Sebastian is tempted to press the heels of his hands to his eyes and groan. Instead he picks up his fork again, takes a bite of pasta, and says, not quite to either of them, “Let’s try a compromise, shall we?”

“Sebby _honestly_ ,” begins Jim, in a long soft drawl, but Seb gives a half shake of his head. Somewhat unexpectedly, the boss goes quiet and Sebastian goes on. 

“Half the pasta. Don’t leave the veg on the side. Jim, at least four mouthfuls of salad. Siobhan, _all_ the milk.” He pauses, but neither of them protests. “I don’t care if you eat the biscuits or not but I am going to have a coffee, and the two of you are going to sit with me.” It’s the longest Jim has let him talk uninterrupted for five weeks, and Seb can tell from the way his fingers ghost over his butter knife that this, too, is going to come out of his hide.

Seb reaches out, lays two fingers on the back of Jim’s wrist, just where it joins his hand, feeling the delicate brutal bone just beneath the skin. Please, he says silently, and Jim huffs out a sigh and glares and picks up his fork. Siobhan mimics him (her mum’s girl already) and the thunderstorm feeling in the air ebbs a little, leaving Seb with the taste of ozone in his mouth.

_We’ll manage, Sebastian, I hear most parents do,_ but Jim is hissing low on every indrawn breath and they are both so thin. 


End file.
